Sunday, July 4, 2010

US plans grant to preserve Auschwitz death camp

The United States plans to contribute 15 million dollars to help preserve the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday in Krakow.

The US grant "illustrates the significance of the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, helps commemorate the ... victims who perished there, and demonstrates America's commitment to Holocaust education, remembrance and research," the US State Department said in a statement.

The contribution will help to swell a "Perpetual Fund" set up by the foundation to carry out essential conservation work at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which grew from a Nazi German concentration camp for Polish prisoners of war to the largest death camp on Polish soil.